Kent Bush: Lines blurred between news and commentary

With every news cycle, the difference between news and commentary becomes less distinguishable. Those blurring lines are turning journalistic integrity into an oxymoron.

Kent Bush

What do Mika Brzezinski, the World Cup and the College World Series have in common? After today, the answer will be that they were all mentioned in one of my columns.

Journalistic integrity

With every news cycle, the difference between news and commentary becomes less distinguishable. Those blurring lines are turning journalistic integrity into an oxymoron.

For years we have heard right-wing radio shows slam newspapers, network television news and some cable news networks as the "mainstream" media. Along with the pseudonym came an implication that the GOP was treated unfairly by mainstream reporters who were liberal sympathizers.

I always understood the complaint but believed it was overblown so that the right's rabble-rousers would have an enemy to fight against.

Everyone who covers politics has a favorite in the race. You might even have friends in the race. Reporters do have lives.

I graduated from Oklahoma State University with a man who is running for lieutenant governor in Oklahoma. Obviously, if I had to cover that race, my ability to remain objective would be difficult.

Unfortunately, MSNBC's Brzezinski quit trying to be objective.

I guess she finally got fed up with the endless parade of formerly important individuals who made appearances to remain in the public eye and spouted hyperbolic opinions with few facts.

So Brzezinski went to work for the cause she believed in.

"Do you want to know why I have a file I have been working on with the White House," Brzezinski told the panel and millions of viewers Monday morning, "I'll be very transparent about that - because Rudy Giuliani came in here last week spewing out a bunch of nothing about what the White House hasn't done."

Giuliani was taking about the White House response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brzezinski should never have crossed that line. Her opinion now carries the same weight as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

She is no longer a journalist. She is a contributor who works for the White House.

There is a difference, and she should have known better.

Baseball purists are mythical creatures

I love hearing sports talk radio when a caller or host refers to himself as a baseball purist.

What they tend to mean is that there is one thing about a situation that they don't like that didn't exist before 1970.

Interleague play, the designated hitter, free agency and steroids all draw responses from these self-proclaimed guardians of the game.

But the annual emergence of purists from their caves has begun. Nothing in baseball brings them out like the College World Series.

They hate the "ping" of metal bats.

That is so ridiculous. From the first swing with something other than a plastic toy aisle bat, boys play with metal bats.

When they reach the professional level, they switch to wooden bats. College athletes are not at that level, so they use metal.

It makes sense and makes the game better.

College coaches love metal bats, too - but for a very different reason. Most have big contracts with bat manufacturing companies that get their teams free equipment and themselves an extra paycheck.

No matter the reason, I would rather watch these players who still play for fun and not funds whether their bats are aluminum, graphite or unobtanium.

The spirit of the game is pure baseball.

World Cup runneth empty

I always make fun of sports editors because they all think they are clever and rarely are.

ESPN featured a World Cup headline Monday that said, "Chile stays hot."

I wonder if the Chileans found "holes" in the Swiss defense, as well.

Beyond trite headlines and underwhelming puns, this World Cup has revealed why soccer will never be a major draw in America.

The United States team should have a win and a loss, but instead they have two ties because England's keeper became a bumper in the pinball game of life and because an official waved off one of the good guys' goals for no apparent reason.

No one knows why the official from Mali waved off the goal. The fact that FIFA hasn't put him back on the field since shows what they thought of his call.

But in football - real football - if an official throws a flag, he has to tell everyone why he threw it. In baseball, umpires signal their calls on every play. They may blow it, but everyone knows what the official thought he saw.

In the biggest soccer tournament in the world, an official can wave off a game-winning goal and no one ever even gets an explanation.

That may be acceptable to Slovenia or Uruguay, but that's not the American way.

So while other countries may be full of people who don't mind watching physically fit players feign injury to draw fake penalties or listening to funny little horns or barroom cheers fill the stadium, I think red-blooded Americans will watch a few games where more than one player gets to use his hands.